The email from our Scavenger Hunt leader read:
“This week you and I must try to photograph......‘MAIL’...snooze...oh sorry...fell asleep with that news!”
I didn’t think the assignment was boring at all. In fact, I was excited about it, and knew exactly which image I wanted to capture!
According to the United States Postal Service, in 1888 a stray mutt wandered into the Albany, New York post office. The dog captured the hearts of the postal clerks and they named him Owney.
Fond of riding in postal wagons, one day Owney followed the mailbags onto a train, and his first trip was from Albany to New York City. Employees considered Owney their good-luck charm, and he became the unofficial mascot of the Railway Mail Service.
Post office clerks bought him a collar and added this inscription: "Owney, Post Office, Albany, New York." Owney rode with mailbags on trains all across the country, protecting the bags’ precious cargo along the way. To document his travels, Railway mail clerks attached medals and tags to Owney’s collar. Postmaster General John Wanamaker even gave Owney a special dog-sized jacket to wear to help display all of his medals and tags.
Owney eventually toured the world when, in 1895, he traveled with mailbags on steamships to Asia and across Europe.
The story of Owney is told in the exhibition “Mail by Rail” at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Postal Museum in Washington, D.C. His adventures highlight the historical importance of the Railway Mail Service.
If you're ever in D.C., I highly recommend adding the National Postal Museum to your list of "must do" sightseeing!
